Chapter 5

The alarm went off on his phone and Tony woke up. For a moment, he couldn't remember what he was doing or where he was. Then, he sat up and realized he was at Tim's house and they needed to get ready to catch a plane.

Tony really needed this trip to go well. Even after talking to Tim about how he'd felt, there was still some worry that he couldn't get rid of. They needed an easy trip after last year. Really, they hadn't had a lighthearted trip since Alaska and that was before Tommy was born. Right now, there wasn't anything dramatic going on beyond just that need. So hopefully, it would be fine.

He heard movement from the bedroom and so he got up and got moving himself, pulling the sheets off the pullout and folding it back up before heading into the bathroom to get ready. The house was quiet with all the kids asleep. Of course, their flight left at eight and they had to be at the airport two hours before departure. So they were up fairly early. Not red-eye flight early, but early.

When he came out, he could smell the coffee in the kitchen. He went in and saw Tim sitting there, staring at his coffee mug, not moving. He looked deep in thought.

It was the NASA one Tony and Daniel had bought him last year.

"Good morning," Tony said, deliberately not commenting on Tim's obvious distraction.

Tim jumped and looked up. He smiled.

"Hey. Coffee?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Tony grabbed a mug and poured himself some coffee.

"You looked like you were thinking pretty hard," he said, trying to sound casual.

"Yeah." Tim sighed. "I should probably tell you, but I was debating it. Last week... I had some bad days. I think I'm out again, but it was bad."

"I'm sorry," Tony said. "You weren't going to tell me?"

"I was still deciding, but I figured you should go into it knowing that I could have a problem if I'm wrong."

"Forewarned is forearmed. I'm not worried," Tony said.

"Ha. Very funny," Tim said. He finished off his coffee and carried the mug to the sink. "I know you are a little bit and so am I."

"Yeah, but I'm not going to dwell on it. I'd rather just have fun. Wouldn't you?"

Tim smiled. "Yeah, but that didn't work so well last time, now did it."

"You can't start on a negative note, Tim," Tony said. "You have to be positive."

"And realistic, Tony," Tim said, but he smiled. "We can do both."

Tony scoffed, although he smiled, too. "Oh, pshaw. No, we can't."

Tim laughed, but then, he sobered.

"Tony, I really do want to have fun on this trip. I know you do, too. I'm just afraid that..."

"No. Don't say it," Tony said. "I know that you worry about it, but you'll be more likely just to have fun if you stop thinking that it's going to go wrong. If you have a nightmare, it's okay. If you have a nightmare, we'll both manage. Okay?"

Tim nodded and took a deep breath.

"Well, I'm all packed. Are you ready?"

"Yep. Let's roll out so we don't miss our flight."

"Sounds good."

Tony finished off his coffee and then, they both grabbed their bags and headed out to the car. They had priced it out and it was about the same to park in long-term parking as it would be to take a taxi to and from the airport. So they decided to go with the convenience of having a car available. The only way it would be cheaper was if they had taken public transit which would take upwards of two hours to get there. All in all, this seemed to be the best choice, a good way to save at least an hour, if not more.

They checked in and headed for their gate. Because it was early, they didn't have much competition and they decided to pick up a pastry and another coffee before settling down to wait for the flight.

"Hey, have you ever thought about getting Delilah a car she could drive?" Tony asked.

"Yeah."

Pause.

"And?" Tony asked.

Tim smiled. "And that's as far as it's ever gone."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suggested it a couple of times, but I think she's scared of the idea, although she won't admit it. She didn't ever drive much even before she was paralyzed. She's lived in the Metro area most of her adult life and she grew up in Boston. Really, it's been fine for her. She gets help as she needs it and we've found a couple of Uber drivers that have wheelchair accessible vehicles. So it's never been a huge deal, and getting a car accessible for her would be really expensive."

"How expensive?"

"Well, she'd have to have training and certify and it was hard to find anything that gave specific costs, but that could be upwards of $100 an hour or more, but beyond that, we'd have to buy a car and then spend between $20,000 and $80,000 to make the modifications."

"Wow."

"Yeah. It's like the cribs. Not many people do this so the price can be high and people will pay it, although I will admit that it's probably really complicated to make a car for a paralyzed person to drive. Still, yeah. But if she wanted to do it, we'd have saved up to get it. But where Delilah is so ambivalent, it's not something that's been a priority."

"Gotcha."

Then, Tim looked at him quizzically.

"Where did that question come from?"

Tony smiled. "I was just thinking about how it didn't matter that we left your car here because Delilah couldn't drive it anyway."

"Oh."

Then, boarding started and they got in line, hoping for on-time departures and no delays in their layover.

Tony didn't know how much Tim was thinking about it, but he was thinking that he really hoped that this would be the fun trip he knew it could be, that the two of them would get back on an even keel again. He would fight for that, no matter what it took.

...but for now, they got on the plane and searched for their seats.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fifteen hours later, the plane was finally descending into Calgary. The hour layover in Chicago had turned into a nine-hour layover in Chicago as a storm had pushed through. They had planned on doing a couple of things right when they got to Banff, but that was not going to happen. They got off the plane and trudged to the baggage claim and then to the rental counter.

"Man, what were we thinking going through O'Hare?" Tony muttered. "It has more delays than any other airport in the country."

"We were thinking it was faster than any of the other available flights," Tim said. "We just struck out this time. But we still have nearly a full week. We'll be fine. It's not like we planned anything out beforehand besides our hotel anyway."

"True. But you can't tell me that you enjoyed hanging out in O'Hare."

"Nope. Not a bit, but we'll be okay," Tim said. "And we're here now, even if it's a lot later than we thought it would be."

"Who's being the optimist now?" Tony asked, raising one eyebrow.

Tim just grinned and pointed.

"There's our car."

They got into the car, set the GPS and then got on their way. Luckily, in spite of the fact that they'd had so much delay in getting to Calgary, the drive to Banff wasn't so bad, except that it was dark. They couldn't see anything and they were cautious about possibly running into wildlife which would really put a damper on the trip.

"Okay, Probie, navigate me to the hotel," Tony said.

"Okay."

Tim started watching for the turnoff. They weren't going to be right in Banff, choosing one of the resorts outside of the town instead that was supposed to have amazing views of the mountains.

"Okay, the exit should be coming up in another... kilometer."

"Oh, yeah. How fast am I going?" Tony looked at the speedometer. "Oh, they're already in kilometers. Good. For a minute, I forgot that we're using different units here."

Tim chuckled and kept watching.

"Oh, there it is!"

Tony obediently took the exit and then they were on a road that seemed to be going up the side of a mountain. There were a few other cars on the road, but not too many, and they got to their hotel easily. Once they got checked in, they drove around to the door nearest to their room. They were in the main lodge. There were a number of separate chalets, but they were a lot more expensive and Tony and Tim weren't willing to pay for that.

"Here we are, Probie," Tony said. "Let's see if it's as good as it looked online."

"Open it up, then."

Tony unlocked the door and they stepped inside the room they'd reserved.

"Not bad. Oh, a fireplace!" Tony said. "Didn't they say there was complimentary firewood?"

"Yep. I think we could even chop it ourselves if we wanted to," Tim said.

"Hmmm... maybe. Well, what do you think?"

Tim looked around. It was a nice room. Quite large with a kitchen, sofa bed, queen bed, bathroom, and a beautiful view, looking toward the mountains... probably. It was full dark. No way to know.

"Looks good to me," he said. "Now, here's the question. Who gets the bed and who gets the pullout?"

Tony looked at the two sleeping spaces.

"How about we trade off?" he suggested. "Then, if the sofa bed isn't comfy, we'll each suffer our 50 percent of the pain."

"Sounds like a plan," Tim said. "Who's first?"

"Rock, paper, scissors," Tony said and held out his fist.

Tim laughed. "You can take it first, Tony. I'm not that–"

"No! Rock, paper, scissors!"

"All right, all right."

Tim held out his fist and they both shook their fists. Then, Tim threw out paper and Tony threw out paper, too.

"Tied. Again," Tony said.

They did it again. This time, they both threw out rock.

"Man," Tony said.

"Tony, if you don't get a move on this, the sun will come up and it'll be morning."

"Ha ha. One more time."

They did it and Tim threw out scissors, thinking Tony wouldn't since they'd each done the other two already.

He was right. Tony went back to paper.

"Aw, scissors cuts paper," Tony said. "Okay, you get the bed tonight and I'll take the pull out."

"Okay, but it's really not a big deal, Tony," Tim said. "I could sleep on the pull out."

"Nope. You won fair and square. I'll sleep on the bed tomorrow."

"Okay. Well, it's late enough that I'm ready to go to bed. How about you?"

"Yeah, but we should call home and let everyone know that we made it here, especially after all the delays."

"True. You can get ready while I'm calling."

"Good idea," Tony said and grabbed his stuff before heading into the bathroom.

Tim pulled out his phone and called home.

"Tim, are you finally there?" Delilah asked when she answered.

"Yeah, finally. We're in our room and about to head to bed. The drive here wasn't bad at all."

"What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"I don't know. We talked about going to Lake Louise. There's a nice hike there, but we might also just want to walk around Banff on Monday and see what there is there. We'll talk about it in the morning when we can see something."

"Ha. Well, remember to call me every night. The kids are in bed, obviously, but I didn't want to sleep until you called."

"You're going to be tired tomorrow when all the kids get up at the normal time," Tim said.

"I'll just make Tommy watch the girls and take a nap."

Tim laughed. "Well, I'll let you get to bed and as soon as Tony is out of the bathroom, I'll get ready for bed, too."

"Is he okay?"

"I think so. We'll see how it goes," Tim said and then saw Tony coming out of the bathroom. "I'll let you know. Good night."

"Have fun, Tim. More than anything else, just have some fun."

"I'll try."

"I know. Love you."

"Love you. Bye."

Tim hung up and looked at Tony.

"How's the bathroom?"

"Nothing fancy, but the water is hot and the pressure's good," Tony said.

"Good."

Tim grabbed some pjs and headed in. As Tony had said, it was all normal hotel fair. Nothing special. Just good enough. He didn't linger and when he came out, Tony was still on the phone. Tim waved to get his attention. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to bed," Tim said, softly.

Tony gave a thumbs up.

"Yeah, Sam. I can hear you," he said, holding the phone a little away from his ear.

Tim laughed and got in bed. He was tired after the long day and Tony wasn't talking loudly. He rolled toward the window and closed his eyes.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony shook his head as Jo took back the phone.

"Sorry about that, Tony. I really thought Sam was asleep like everyone else. He took me by surprise."

"That's okay. He's sneaky like that."

"I'm glad you got there safely. Now, how much are you still worrying?"

Tony glanced over toward where Tim was lying on the bed. He couldn't see his face, but the could see that Tim was breathing evenly. He hoped that this would be indicative of the whole trip.

"Some," he admitted.

"Well, if you have fun and stop worrying, you'll feel better."

"That's either the most obvious comment in the world or very Zen," Tony said.

"I'll let you decide. I'm going to bed now. So you do that, too, and stop worrying."

"Thanks, Jo. Good night."

"Good night."

Jo hung up and Tony did the same. Then, he took a breath and walked over to the window. It was far too dark out. It looked like there were some clouds. Maybe he wouldn't be able to see the mountains anyway.

But it didn't matter so much right now. They were here and they were going to have a lot of fun. They'd go hiking and see all the glaciers and such. It would be fun.

Tony lay down and was pleasantly surprised. The bed really wasn't bad at all. The mattress was quite good, actually.

That was a great way to start the trip. Much better than a bad bed that they'd be miserable on. With that thought, Tony got comfortable and closed his eyes.